Adriane Dalton
Bio – Adriane Dalton is an artist, writer, and arts-educator based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is Editor-in-Chief of Metalsmith magazine published by SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths), and a past contributor to Art Jewelry Forum’s online magazine.
Over the past fifteen years, her studio practice has evolved from traditional jewelry and enameling techniques to incorporate alternative and recycled materials. Lately, she is using disused and discarded materials to engage the intersections of labor, class, gender, and consumption. Her work has been exhibited at Westobou Gallery (Augusta, GA), The Greater Denton Arts Council (Denton, TX), Contemporary Craft (Pittsburgh, PA), The Visual Arts Center of Richmond (Richmond, VA), The Wayne Art Center (Wayne, PA), Snyderman-Works Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), A CASA Museu de Object Brasileiro (São Paulo, Brazil), the Metal Museum (Memphis, TN), and Space 1026 (Philadelphia, PA).
Keynote Lecture – Capacity for Dreaming
Dalton’s talk considers the meanderings, distractions, derailments, and making-ends-meet that make-up a practice through the lens of care, collectivity, and community. What does it mean to be a maker or a material-smith in a swiftly shifting world? What might coalition-building look like in an increasingly interdisciplinary field? What will flattening hierarchy and establishing new systems look like in Craft? The answers to these questions are limited only by our capacity, collectively and individually, for dreaming.
Andrew Meers
Bio – Andrew Meers is a bladesmith and metalsmith Andrew received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston MA and his MFA from Southern Illinois Carbondale. Andrew earned his Mastersmith rating from the American Bladesmithing Society, and is a recipient of the B.R Hughes award. Andrew is a former artist in residence at The National Ornamental Metals Museum, Memphis TN, and a Former Artist in Residence at Penland School of Crafts Andrew has been an instructor at Penland, New England School of Metalwork, and Touchstone Center for Crafts.
Capstone Lecture – (Information Coming Soon)
Breakout Session – Inlay with Hand Techniques
Meer’s lecture will present inlay and chasing techniques of fine metal and discuss how they can be applied to metalworking as well as the advantages of using this style of cold application to embellish iron surfaces. He will discuss how he uses these varied techniques in his work, and show examples of engraving, inlay, and carving. He has worked within a traditional context in the past and will conclude the presentation with how he is adapting his creative practice by utilizing up-to-date engraving tools and design aids.
During the workshop, he will provide a demonstration of traditional inlay and carving techniques using hand chisels and hammers to apply fine metal to iron samples. He will show how traditional engraving techniques can be modified with contemporary methods and how this combination has helped him to evolve the style of his work.
Jaydan Moore
Bio – Jaydan Moore was born into a family of fourth-generation tombstone makers in Northern California. Most of his childhood was spent at the family business, which doubled as a rental storage space. He would rummage through other people’s objects that were left behind, and listen to family members making burial arrangements for their loved ones. It is through these experiences he began to value the heirlooms and objects chosen to become markers for significant moments that occur during the human experience.
His career began as an undergraduate student at California College of the Arts, in Oakland, CA. Moore received his MFA and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jaydan’s work is in the permanent collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art (PA), Museum of Fine Arts-Houston (TX), and Honolulu Museum of Art (HI). He has furthered his career through generous opportunities as an artist in residence at Penland School of Crafts, Kohler Arts/Industry Program, the Fountainhead Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth Universities Craft/Material Studies Program, and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Lecture – Their, There
This lecture will cover Jaydan Moore’s trajectory as an artist. How his childhood time at his family’s memorial shop and storage company affected how he views our material world. His interactions with the customers at the shop made him want to make art. Jaydan will describe how these ideals brought him to work in metal and how his work grew as an undergrad at California College of the Arts and evolved while doing graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He will describe his thought process in venturing into residency programs at craft schools around the country. He will define how his residencies at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, The Virginia Commonwealth Fountainhead Fellowship, Penland School of Craft, and Kohler changed how he viewed making. Jaydan will finish by describing his life as a full-time studio artist. Where his work has grown and the concepts he is currently focused on.
Breakout Session – Marrying of Metal and Low Temperature Solder
In this workshop, Moore will discuss the many things he has learned while working with silver-plated platters. He will discuss his marrying of metal technique– walking through step by step how each platter is broken down and pierced to fit its corresponding neighbor. He will present some tips and tricks for using your jeweler’s saw and ways to make sawing more efficient and hopefully break fewer blades. You will look at best ways to use low-temperature solder and the pros and cons of this solder as a binder. You will discuss ways to fix how messy the solder can be. Finally, Moore will cover how he lays out the structural dimension of his newer pieces. Simple drafting and patterning processes and ways to mass-produce some the parts that come together in the final object. This lecture will cover how to create large work using a very modest collection of jewelry tools with planning.
Lauren Kalman
Bio- Lauren Kalman is a visual artist based in Detroit USA. Raised in the Cleveland, Kalman completed her MFA in Art and Technology from the Ohio State University and earned a BFA with a focus in Metals from Massachusetts College of Art.
Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Cranbrook Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mint Museum, World Art Museum in Beijing, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Françoise van den Bosch Foundation at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, and the Korean Ceramics Foundation.
Lecture – Crafting the Body
Detroit, USA based artist Lauren Kalman will discuss her multi-media work that combines jewelry, craft, sculpture, video, photography, and performance. Kalman’s work is rooted in jewelry and uses craft mediums and decorative objects as a strategic choice. Her performance videos and images place the body in often uncomfortable relationships to jewelry, wearable objects, and the built environment. Through these performances using her body, her work investigates constructions of the ideal and the feminine and their impacts on self-image and identity, the politics of craft, and the built environment. Included in the talk will be a discussion of her recent glass work that explores loss, control, and the desire to hold close.
Sandra McEwen
Bio – Sandra McEwen is an enamel artist who has been working in glass for over 15 years. After graduating with a BFA in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design, she explored several kinds of media, including stained glass, before discovering her love of enamels. The enamels are small but bold. She treasures well made things and finds inspiration from both the natural world and the fantasy of fables and lore. She is currently working and teaching out of her studio in Wilmington, NC.
Breakout Session – Explorations of Champleve Enamel
McEwen will demonstrate how she fabricates her fine silver bases. She will begin by sawing the design, prepping the silver for fusing, and methods for getting a reliable and smooth fuse.
Danni Xu
Bio – Danni Xu was born in China and currently resides in the United States. She received her MFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from Rhode Island School of Design and holds a BFA degree in Metalsmithing & Jewelry Design, and a B.S. degree in Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management from Indiana University Bloomington. She has previously taught classes and workshops at Rhode Island School of Design, Lillstreet Art Center, Kean University and Penland School of Craft.
Danni’s work has featured both nationally and internationally, including Profile’19 in Sydney, Australia, Beijing international Jewellery Art Exhibition in Beijing, China, Jewelry and Nature in Porto, Portugal, Mulan – New Age Chinese Art Jewelry at New York City Jewelry Week, NY, Heart + Flowers in Brooklyn, NewYork, Timeless Cure (invitational) in Chicago, IL as well as traveling exhibition Surface Matters: Grit or Gloss from The Enamelist Society.
As an artist and a designer, Danni’s current work focuses on the potential connection that jewelry could build across time and space, and examines the methodology of how to project specific emotions such as nostalgia through wearing or viewing in the jewelry format.
Breakout Session – Familiar Objects as Vehicles for Memories
Have you ever thought about storytelling in a non-verbal format? Have you ever had the temptation to build your own keepsake from family heirlooms? Whether you are inspired by nostalgic memories or your favorite novels, this workshop will guide you to explore the illustrative world of enameling and start building the skills needed to translate your imagery into glass on metal. This workshop will investigate how to explore the narrative potential through the demonstration of graphite and decal on enamel.
In the lecture, Xu will share her background and experience as a narrator in jewelry. Her works draw inspiration from the stories of people- and how, through jewelry, they manifest their sense of belonging. The resulting work will enable the story owner to construct a dialog with themselves, their own memories, nostalgia, and history. Xu often applies different methodologies such as alternation from the original object into jewelry, changes of materials, color and scale to signify the preciousness within the association of nostalgia.
Kelly Jean Conroy
Bio – Kelly Jean Conroy was born in 1983, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Growing up in New England and being raised by an artist mother who emphasized making and painting, and an engineer father eventually led her to attaining her BFA from Syracuse University in art education and painting. She completed her MFA in Jewelry Metals from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2013. She is currently teaching metalsmithing at Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School and Metalwerx. She has previously taught Continuing Ed Jewelry courses at Massachusetts College of Art, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Peters Valley School of Craft, Snowfarm, and the Worcester Center for Crafts. Her personal work focuses on life cycles in nature within a jewelry format. Her specialties are laser cutting, enameling, and working with natural materials: carving bone, piercing mother of pearl.
Breakout Session – Lasercut Landscapes
Have you ever been curious about the potential for using a lasercutter in your work? This workshop will explore the potential of this versatile tool in regards to creating components for your designs as well as infusing drawings or imagery into multiple surfaces. You will explore various materials, look at contemporary work exploring the laser, and discuss the types of ways to convert designs easily using varying computer programs. As a grand finale, workshop participants will be able to create a custom design and be able to print it onto colored acrylic and have a take away charm as a memento of the experience.
Amy Roper Lyons
Bio – Amy Roper Lyons is a studio metalsmith and enamelist. Lyons creates bold compositions of gold, silver and glass, each unique piece made by hand in her studio. She combines enamel processes like cloisonné and plique-a-jour with a broad palette of goldsmithing techniques. Lyons’ work draws inspiration from a number of sources. Her vessels synthesize traditional and digital techniques, and recent jewelry is sparked by Hubble Telescope photos of space.
Her award-winning work has been published in books and magazines such as 500 Enameled Objects, CAST: Art and Objects, Digital Handmade, SNAG’s Jewelry and Metals Survey 2018, “Jewelry Artist“, “Ornament“, and “Metalsmith”. Lyons’ work is exhibited nationally at museums, galleries and craft shows, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and Smithsonian Craft Show. Lyons has taught enameling at craft schools across the US. She received her BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art (University of the Arts).
Breakout Session – Digital / Traditional: CAD and 3D Printing for Plique-a-jour Enamel Vessels
This workshop focuses on plique a jour, or unbacked enamel, a technique with a rich history. Pairing this traditional technique with digital technologies opens exciting new possibilities for exploration. The two materials, metal and enamel, share equal importance in this process, and the resulting object does not fit neatly into either category. The approach used to build the metal framework has large implications for the look and feel of the finished work.
Use of CAD and 3D printing to fabricate the frameworks opens a world of new design possibilities. The workshop will discuss the CAD process, and the software options which allow for creating diverse forms. You will explore how best to translate the CAD model into metal, using 3D printing, mold-making, and casting.
The enameling process will be discussed, including strategies for filling and firing cells without support or backing, allowing the freedom to work with complex forms and in three dimensions. Application of the enamel and firing in the kiln will be demonstrated.
Nanette Pengelley
Bio – Nanette is an artist and jewelry designer originally from Florida. She went on to study in Quito, Boston, and Florence. After graduating from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2015 with her BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing, Nanette has been exploring her practice within her brand, Hew Jewelry, splitting her time between New England and Florida. Her work is shaped by the materials she is attracted to as she often finds herself captivated by an object simply because of her encounter with it. Whether that object is found on the street, meticulously crafted by her own two hands, or grown in nature, she finds that experience can be carried forward by the wearer, through the act of making something beautiful out of the unconventional.
Breakout Session – Fiber Techniques in Metal
In Jewelry and Metal, people are so often taught what adornment is and what it is not– how it is made (painstakingly, precisely), what it is made from (shiny, shiny things), and just exactly what it means to be a Metalsmith (awesome). It would seem to be a pretty straightforward field. However, when you throw in a sudden hiatus from all group activity that ends your studio access due to a global pandemic with no clear end in sight… well, you start to see just how many ways in which your practice is fed outside of traditional methods.
“As it turns out, so many parts of my process take place outside of an actual metal studio, with a variety of materials. For instance, sometimes I just sit in the grass and embroider, or I wander along a river-bank cutting willow shoots to weave with– once, I spent 6 months straight pulling apart bean pods, sewing them together and then molding them over different forms.”
In this workshop, Pengelley will discuss fiber techniques and metal, ways to translate pieces from outside the studio into the language of metalsmithing- some of the ways in which she’s been successful at this goal, and some of the ways in which she’s still working. Through traditional fiber techniques such as sewing, embroidery, lace-making, and weaving, she has found a language of making that has allowed her to forge ahead during a time of scarcity and uncertainty.
Maria Eife
Bio – Maria Eife is a Philadelphia-based jewelry artist. She received a BFA in Metals/Jewelry/CAD-CAM from Tyler School of Art in 2000. She has since been building a practice rooted in both digital and traditional craft. She co-founded JV Collective in 2016 and the group has exhibited at Munich Jewelry Week, New York City Jewelry Week and at the Baltimore Jewelry Center. Motherhood quickly influenced her work. In 2019 she made breast pump inspired work for Forging a Link at the Mercer Museum. That work is now touring in the Designing Motherhood exhibition. Maria continues to do several fine craft shows a year, including the Smithsonian Craft Show and the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, at which she was awarded the Excellence in Jewelry Prize in 2017.
Breakout Session – Digital Design and Hand Dying Techniques
The session will begin with a presentation about Eife’s work and journey so far in her career. She will do a demonstration in CAD, (Rhino) to show some tricks she uses to create her work. In the dye lab, she will discuss how she uses color to accentuate form. She will demonstrate several techniques she uses to add color to her work with fabric dyes, including creating multicolored parts using a resist.
ECU Material Topics Symposium 